Rebecca Cross, Raining Fire, 2019 (Artist Website)
Silk, dyes
Love holds unreliably. Your birthday nears
in its hungry way, mine for
a glimmer of here, of
once was & nestled your voice
in my air, selbstverständlich & wanting
breakfast or bandaid, your light bulb
changed. The day itself rattles
triple-paned windows, demands the authentic, disdains
candles in ritual sand: leaning, gone
in an hour & then what?
Twenty-one. I pictured you eight,
maybe nine, dimmed the daydream as
your cousins grew Adam’s apples. Steady
myself now with the you I
still carry: poreless, warm, & ever
engrossed with your raptures of knowing.
My fuel, my soul, my – You,
gone now twice your time alive,
a ration unworthy of your wise-child
glow & skeptic’s wit. Wildcat endurance:
needled fingers, bloodstream fire, lost days,
captured nerves. I loved you
unbrokenly then. How does love go
now? Sweet child, speak to me.